Built by directors · For directors

RoundUp vs.
the incumbents.

Switching child-care platforms is risky. Here's the seven-point comparison directors actually ask us about — and the honest answers, including where competitors do well.

RoundUp

$179/mo

60-child bundle, annual

Brightwheel

~$280/mo

Range: $250–350

Procare

~$240/mo

Range: $200–300

Lillio (HiMama)

~$199/mo

Range: $149–249

Side by side

The seven things that actually decide it.

All four platforms can do basic check-in and parent communication. The differences below are where centers actually choose, switch, or stay.

Capability	RoundUp$99 base + addons	Brightwheel$250–350/mo	Procare$200–300/mo	Lillio (HiMama)$149–249/mo
Compliance
Mixed-age ratio support Live math when one room mixes age bands	✓ Built into Base	— Single-band per room only	— Single-band per room only	— Single-band per room only
ERDC subsidy reporting	✓ $39 addon · OED format	Partial Manual export, not OED-formatted	Partial Custom report build required	—
Spark QRIS exports	✓ $39 addon	—	Partial	—
Payments
Tap-to-Pay for parents at pickup Parent pulls out a card or phone — director taps it on the staff iPhone. No reader.	✓ Yellow addon · one of the only ECE apps	— Square reader required (~$40/mo)	— Clover terminal required	— Worldline doesn't support it
Apple Pay for remote tuition	✓	✓	Add-on	—
Auto late-fee rules	✓	✓	✓	Manual
Pricing & trial
Free trial length	10 days No card required	14 days	— Demo only	14 days
Annual contract required	No Monthly available; annual saves 15%	Yes 12-month minimum	Yes 12 to 24-month	No
Pricing transparency	✓ All prices on this page	Sales-led	Sales-led	✓
Setup & migration
Standard setup cost	$499 Waived w/ annual	$0–500 Negotiated	$500–2,000 Custom	$0–300
Time to go live (single site)	3–5 days	2–4 weeks	4–8 weeks	1–3 weeks
Migration from your current tool	✓ Brightwheel, Procare, Lillio, CSV — included	CSV only	Custom $$$	CSV only
Multi-site & enterprise
SSO (SAML/Okta/Google/Microsoft)	Enterprise Sold on Enterprise plans only	Enterprise	Enterprise	—
Cross-location reporting	✓ Multi-Site addon	✓	✓	—
White-label mobile app Your name on the App Store, your splash screen	✓ Enterprise · base RoundUp engine inside	— Brightwheel branding only	— Procare branding only	— Lillio branding only
Built by ECE directors Not VC-funded outsiders	✓ Swift Start operates centers in Oregon	— Tech founder background	— Acquired by PE firm 2021	— Tech founder background
Infrastructure & reliability
Multi-region failover Automated cutover if primary region fails	✓ AWS us-west-2 + us-east-1 + Route 53 DNS failover	Single region Multi-AZ within one region	Single region Multi-AZ within one region	Single region
Uptime SLA	99.9% Multi-Site · 99.95% on Enterprise	99.9% Enterprise contracts only	99.5% Standard plans	No SLA

Competitor data current as of May 2026 from public pricing pages, sales conversations, and customer reports. Brightwheel, Procare, and Lillio are trademarks of their respective owners. We're not lawyers — verify pricing and feature claims with each vendor before deciding.

The four platforms

An honest profile of each vendor.

Including ours. Where we're new, we say so. Where the competition does something well, we say that too. The point is to help you choose right — not to bury the lede.

Feature deep-dives

How each platform handles the four high-stakes capabilities.

The check-mark matrix above tells you what exists. These four deep-dives tell you how it actually works in your center on a Tuesday morning.

Capability 1

Mixed-age ratio enforcement

What happens when one room has children from different age bands. (The single biggest reason centers we talk to switch from Brightwheel.)

RoundUp

Unique

Tracks every child's age band individually. As kids check in or out, the room's live ratio cap is recomputed using the OCC mixed-age rule (youngest child sets the cap). Director phone alerts before you go over, not after.

Brightwheel

Doesn't do this

Computes ratio per room template — assumes one age band per room. Says "in compliance" the day a toddler ages up and stays in their room while paperwork catches up. Most centers find out about violations after OCC visits.

Procare

Doesn't do this

Same room-template assumption as Brightwheel. Workaround is to manually create a separate "mixed-age" room class, but that breaks reporting and double-counts headcount.

Lillio

Doesn't do this

Ratio tracking is rudimentary; many centers manage ratios outside Lillio entirely. No mixed-age awareness.

Capability 2

State subsidy reporting (ERDC, equivalent)

What it takes to submit your monthly subsidy paperwork. For Oregon centers serving ERDC-eligible families, this is 4–6 hours of admin time per month.

RoundUp

One click

Lavender addon ($39/mo) generates ERDC monthly export in OED's expected format. 5-day-rule lapse detection built in. Roughly 8 minutes of director review per month.

Brightwheel

Manual export

Attendance + billing data exists but isn't formatted for ODHS. Most centers we talk to maintain a parallel spreadsheet or hire a consultant.

Procare

Custom report

You can build the report you need. The build takes 2–4 hours initially and breaks when ODHS changes its format. Some centers we talk to pay a Procare consultant $1,000+/quarter for this.

Lillio

Not supported

No ERDC reporting. Centers manage subsidy paperwork in QuickBooks or by hand.

Capability 3

Tuition processing & Tap-to-Pay for parents

How parents actually pay you — including the parent who shows up at pickup without a checkbook. Hardware, fees, and which platforms can handle in-person payments without a separate card reader.

RoundUp

Custom Stripe

Yellow addon ($49/mo) runs on a custom Stripe integration built specifically for RoundUp — modern, ACH + card + Apple Pay + Tap to Pay on iPhone all in one flow. No card reader to rent. No third-party reconciliation. Auto late-fee rules. Standard Stripe rates with no markup.

Brightwheel

Stripe + Square

Tuition runs on Stripe (modern, fine), but in-person fees require a Square reader (~$40/mo rental) — a separate processor. Two systems to reconcile every month.

Procare

Add-on + Clover

Tuition is an extra-cost add-on. In-person fees require a Clover terminal. Per-transaction fees are bundled into the Procare quote — no transparency.

Lillio

Worldline (Bambora)

Lillio runs tuition through Worldline (formerly Bambora) — an older Canadian processor with limited modern payment support and slower settlement than Stripe. No Apple Pay, no Tap-to-Pay, no native ACH for many US centers. Many Lillio customers run tuition through QuickBooks or a separate Stripe account instead.

Capability 4

Setup time & data migration

How long it takes to be live, and how clean the migration is from your current tool.

RoundUp

3–5 days

Standard Setup ($499, waived w/ annual) includes full migration from Brightwheel, Procare, Lillio, or CSV. Roster, families, billing history, outstanding balances. 1–2 day specialist + 90 min training.

Brightwheel

2–4 weeks

Self-serve via CSV. Roster import only — billing history and balances don't migrate. Most centers run parallel for a billing cycle.

Procare

4–8 weeks

Custom migration project, $$$. Some centers migrating to RoundUp from Procare have spent more on the original Procare migration than RoundUp's annual subscription.

Lillio

1–3 weeks

CSV roster import. Parent-side migration is smooth (re-invite). Tuition migration: you re-set up Stripe, no historical data carries over.

Honest part

When you should not choose RoundUp.

There are real situations where another platform is the better call. Here are three. We'd rather help you pick right than win a deal that won't fit.

Pick this instead

Choose Brightwheel if…

Your priority is parent-app UX above everything else, you have a strict single-age-band room structure (no mixed-age days, ever), and you're comfortable signing a 12-month contract after a sales call. Brightwheel's parent app is, honestly, the best in the category.

The trade: you accept their ratio assumptions and the annual lock-in.

Pick this instead

Choose Procare if…

You run a 200+ child center or multi-state operation with a dedicated admin team that can write Procare reports, you're audit-heavy (Head Start, NACCRRA, federal funding), and you need their accounting integration. Procare can do everything; you just need someone whose full-time job is making it do those things.

The trade: you accept the report-builder learning curve, dated UI, and 4–8 week setup.

Pick this instead

Choose Lillio if…

You don't need subsidy reporting (no ERDC, no state subsidy population), tuition processing isn't a priority (you're fine running it through QuickBooks), and you mostly just want a beautiful family-communication tool. Lillio is the cheapest, prettiest option for that narrow use case.

The trade: you accept running multiple tools (Lillio + Stripe + QuickBooks) for total cost ~$250+/mo.

Notice we didn't include a bigger version of "everyone else does this better, RoundUp can't." That's not because we're hiding things — it's because for the specific buyer profile we built RoundUp for (Oregon centers, small chains, anyone with mixed-age days), we genuinely believe we're the right pick. If you're outside that profile, please go pick the right tool for you.

Why centers switch

The three conversations we have most.

These are paraphrased from real intake calls — not testimonials, just patterns.

From Brightwheel

"Brightwheel told us the room was at ratio. Then OCC came."

Brightwheel computes ratio per room template — it assumes one age band per room. The day a toddler ages up but stays in their room while paperwork catches up, Brightwheel says you're fine. OCC says you're not.

"We weren't trying to game it. We just had one toddler in a 3s room for two weeks. Found out about the violation a month later."

From Procare

"Procare works. It just takes 40 hours to get a number out."

Procare is comprehensive but report-builder driven. ERDC submission becomes a custom report someone has to maintain. QRIS visit prep becomes a multi-day project. Most directors we talk to don't need more features — they need the existing ones to be faster.

"My ED hires a Procare consultant for a week every quarter just to pull the right numbers. That's $4,000 a year before we even count my time."

From Lillio (HiMama)

"Lillio is great for parents. Not for billing."

Lillio (formerly HiMama) is family-engagement first. Daily reports, photos, threads — all good. But tuition runs on Worldline (Bambora), an older processor with no Apple Pay or Tap-to-Pay, and Lillio integrates with effectively nothing else. Most centers end up with Lillio + QuickBooks + a Square reader.

"Lillio + Square + QuickBooks costs us about $250/month and three different logins. RoundUp is one app for $179."

Switching is included

Free migration from Brightwheel, Procare, Lillio, or CSV.

Roster, families, billing history, and outstanding balances. A migration specialist works with you for 1–2 days. Most centers are live on RoundUp by the following Monday.

Run the math for your center

See your ROI in 15 minutes.

We'll log into a sandbox center on a shared screen, model your migration, and show you the savings calculator with your real numbers. No deck. No commitment.

Book a 15-min demo → See the savings math